


Voice of an Angel

by fracnkie



Series: How to Make Friends with Your Toy Soldier [1]
Category: The Mechanisms (Band)
Genre: Gen, I Come Up With a Bunch of Fake Names for the Toy Soldier, Pointing Agressively at "The Story of Toy Soldier" Fiction, References to Medical Malpractice, The Moon War (referenced), how do I tag the idea that the toy soldier doesn't think it's real and everything painful about that
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-15
Updated: 2020-06-15
Packaged: 2021-03-04 03:48:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,521
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24727003
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fracnkie/pseuds/fracnkie
Summary: A series of conversations Tim has with and about the Toy Soldier before regaining his vision.
Relationships: Gunpowder Tim & The Toy Soldier
Series: How to Make Friends with Your Toy Soldier [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1783078
Comments: 20
Kudos: 182





	Voice of an Angel

**Author's Note:**

> When I say "pointing aggressively at "The Story of the Toy Soldier" fiction I mean that you should probably read it before this. I mean you don't have to but some subtleties and references will go over your head. Oh and also "In The Army" is referenced but you're, like, not required to read that for this.  
> I also feel like I have to make it clear that I use he/it pronouns for some of the ways I address the "it" pronoun in this fic. So, uh, yeah.  
> Once again betaed by the wonderful and kind KersPastei.

Tim has been sitting in this godforsaken lab for the past… he guesses it’s been an hour at the very least. It’s so quiet he can hear his heartbeat and with no ability to look around what he guesses is probably a smaller room there’s not much else to focus on. So he sits with his knees pulled up to his chest and hums army songs in some kind of hope of filling the space.

Then there’s a quick, precise knock at the door. The sound of echoing metal rings in his ears oddly and he cringes at it, pulling in closer. He stops humming, though, and tilts his head up toward the sound. When the knock comes again not ten seconds later he realizes that they’re expecting some sort of response. So whoever it was, it wasn’t someone he’s already met like the doctor or Ca- d’Ville. It’s just d’Ville now. The doctor always just comes in regardless and d’Ville, the few times he visits, knocks as a warning before he comes in. Tim isn’t really sure how many people are on this ship but d’Ville implied there were quite a few of them. Something about an engineer and a quartermaster.

“Come in,” Tim says, looking back down at his knees.

“I brought you food, ol’ chap!” the person says, voice high and… oddly familiar.

“Who are you?” he asks, glaring in frustration. Memories were blurring together still.

“You don’t remember me?” they ask. “I’m… I’m…” the person stops. Tim can hear them walking forward. “I brought you food!”

“Wait,” he says quickly and he hears them stop. He blinks in confusion at that and turns his head at the person. “Are you… Colonel Vangelis?”

The person doesn’t respond at first but it’s not long until they give a wooden laugh. “No,” they say truthfully and cheerily. “But I did bring you food.”

“You can set it down over…” he points vaguely at where he thinks the counter is and hopes he’ll be able to find it later. 

He hears the person walk over with the thumps of heavy combat boots against metal that reminds him of the tunnels. He hears a metal tray click onto the counter and some things scrape on top of it.

“It’s nice seeing you again, lieutenant!” the person says, which only continues to confuse Tim.

The person retreats and about ten minutes later Tim attempts to eat the cold peanut butter and jelly sandwich and orange juice that were set on the counter for him. Memories are still sort of fuzzy but that voice was pretty recognizable even in his gunpowder-filled brain. At the very least he knows whoever brought him food was in the army with him like d’Ville was.

* * *

The same knock comes two days later. He’s eaten in the meantime but it’s mostly flavorless meal replacements the doctor gives him when he’s conscious. She’s gone again, doing something around the ship that has thankfully left him a moment of silence. He hasn’t seen d’Ville in the meantime which he finds both annoying and nice. On one hand, d’Ville is a dick. On the other, he’s less of a dick than the doctor.

“Come in,” Tim says at the second knock.

“I brought food!” the same person as before says, voice still cheery and sweet.

“Oh, hey,” he says, narrowing his eyes at his lap. “You can set it in the same place.”

He hears the person walk over, still wearing those heavy combat boots. He hears the click of the tray and the person starts to walk away.

“Wait!” he says, surprising himself. The person stops in place at his command and his suspicions are only confirming themselves. “You called me lieutenant. You know who I am. Who the fuck are you?”

“My friends call me the Toy Soldier,” they say, he hears them turn around.

“That’s not a name,” Tim tells them. “What’s your name.”

“I’ve had a lot of names, lieutenant.”

“Okay, that name do I know you by?”

“Oh!” they exclaim. “Well, you can call me the Toy Soldier.”

“Do you like that name?” Tim asks, now hesitant that he crossed some line.

“It’s not really a name,” the Toy Soldier says. “I don’t use names often. I’ve had a few.”

“Do you want to tell me them?”

“Oh, there’s an awful lot to remember, ol’ chap,” he hears them walk closer. “Well… the first name I went by was Lieutenant Colonel Charles Beaumont. I think it was the name of the husband of the woman who called me that. She was an interesting one, I’ll tell you. I don’t know if she was very nice. Then I just went by Charlie to the Angel. The Angel was very nice. Sorely miss the dame.”

“What happened to her?” Tim interrupts.

There’s a pause and Tim has definitely crossed some sort of line. “She’s dead,” the Toy Soldier says and while their voice is still on the edge of happiness, it has a weird edge to it. Yeah, he overstepped. He cringes to himself as the Toy Soldier continues talking. “I was… I think they called me Elle T. Rose for a while during King Cole’s war. A lot of fun that was but Old Rosie was an awful gossip. Then Mr. and Mrs. Bittersnipe just called me the Toy Soldier and I’ve been that for a while now!”

“What about during the war?”

“That’s hardly my name,” they say in a scoff. “Taylor Vangelis is just something Jonny came up with. Said no one is going to believe my name is just “the Toy Soldier” even though I didn’t find that much of a problem during King Cole’s war.”

“Why do they call you the Toy Soldier?”

A pause, not tense, they’re thinking. “Just do!” they say, finally. “I should get going! It was nice talking to you Lieutenant Gunpowder!”

“Just Tim is fine,” he tells them. He laughs a bitter laugh. “No need to go by any formalities since the war is over.”

“Will do!” they say, walking off.

* * *

“Hey, d’Ville?” Tim says one of the times d’Ville decides to visit, which is only the next morning after the Toy Soldier and Tim talk.

“I told you to call me Jonny,” d’Ville spits and Tim hears the scribbling of his pencil stop only briefly. “What do you need?”

“How many people are on this ship, anyway?” Tim asks.

D’Ville gives a sharp laugh and Tim hears him set down his pen. “Too many,” he says decisively.

“At least tell me about them if I’m going to be stuck with you,” Tim insists.

There’s a weighty pause at that. Odd for d’Ville to not immediately answer with wild bluster.

“You can leave,” he says gruffly.

“Like the doctor is going to let me.”

“Doc Carmilla won’t be in charge for very long,” he says, every so quiet.

“You shouldn’t say that.”

“Aurora’s not going to snitch on me,” d’Ville says and Tim can hear his smirk. “If Aurora doesn’t want Carmilla to know then Carmilla won’t know. In fact, anything you don’t tell the Toy Soldier or Carmilla herself she won’t know about if you don’t want to.”

Tim narrows his eyes at that. “Why would the Toy Soldier say anything?” he asks hesitantly.

“Can’t help it,” d’Ville says quickly. “Carmilla isn’t as nice about not giving it orders when she really wants to know something. She doesn’t make it do anything it doesn’t want to, though. She’s at least good on that.”

“It?” Tim’s nose crinkles.

There’s a short pause. “The Toy Soldier goes by ‘it,’” d’Ville explains. “Let me actually tell you about the rest of the crew then. You should probably know all their names before you meet them and what they’re like. We’re a touchy group.”

“If they’re anything like you, yeah,” Tim quips because he can’t help it. He’s been making fun of d’Ville for most of the war and a lunar canon wasn’t going to change his attitude.

“Don't need to be an arse about it, Gunpowder,” d’Ville sneers. “Well, there’s me, of course, your captain.”

“The war is over,” Tim points out. “You’re not the captain anymore.”

“I could be a captain here if I wanted.”

“Over Carmilla’s dead body.”

“That can be arranged.”

“I really doubt that.”

* * *

“You remind me of someone,” the Toy Soldier says one day.

“Who?” Tim asks. Bored as he is, he could use the conversation.

“The Angel,” it says. “Did I tell you about her?”

“You said she died and that she was nice,” he answers studiously.

“She was very nice,” it says, almost wistful. “You have a lot in common! Long hair, pretty voice, blind. Well, the circumstances of your blindness are very different. She couldn’t see from birth and you were just unlucky.”

“The doctor said she’s going to replace my eyes,” Tim says.

“That’s odd!” it says. “I think Nastya mentioned to Jonny how she and Brian were going to.”

Tim jumps. Carmilla can’t know that. Jonny was already talking about threats of violence against Carmilla. If she found out… Well, if he remembers from his last moments not on this ship, there is one thing he knows about the Toy Soldier.

“I order you not to tell Carmilla what Nastya said about my eyes,” he says firmly, even as he feels a slight tinge of guilt as he does, his morals no longer blinded with rage.

There’s a silence for an uncomfortably long amount of time and if the Toy Soldier wasn’t wearing such heavy boots he might have thought it left. Eventually, it says something.

“The doctor would be very upset if I were to kill you right now,” it says, a lot colder than he expects. “I… I want to kill you. A lot. The doctor would be upset, though, so I won’t. I don’t know if she made you immortal yet. She won’t tell me.”

“I- I’m sorry that was…” Tim trails off, narrowing his eyes as he tries to figure out the words. “A dick move.”

“I’m not sure what that means, ol’ chap!” it says, tone no longer cold and the juxtaposition is very off-putting. He doesn’t comment. “Next time ask before giving an order! Wouldn’t want to have to get rid of such a nice voice!”

Tim isn’t entirely sure if that’s a joke or not, but he doesn’t ask and the Toy Soldier does end up leaving this time. 

* * *

Tim doesn’t hear from the Toy Soldier until he can see again. A lot of things happen between that time. Nastya and Brian were indeed the ones to get Tim his new eyes and Jonny mentioned Carmilla fell out of the airlock again. He doesn’t want to ask about the “again” part. He meets most of the crew. Drumbot Brian and Nastya Rasputina, of course, who did happen to ask if he wanted to finish the process before they did so, which is more than the doctor ever did. They also anesthetized him, proving that the doctor was just being a dick when she didn’t. He already assumed so because she would only not anesthetize him sometimes when she seemed to be in a touchy mood. He also met Ashes O’Reilly when they assigned him a room in the gun deck and Ivy Alexandria when she asked to log things for his file including his name and the position the others thrust upon him.

The Toy Soldier he runs into one day when he walks into the commons. It’s sitting at a table with a mug of tea in front of it and a beautifully painted mandolin in its lap. It hums softly as it strums, occasionally writing things down in a notebook that sits in front of it.

“What are you doing?” Tim asks, now a lot more touchy the longer he’s been on the ship. He thinks it’s contagious.

The Toy Soldier looks up with a start, blinking up at Tim when it meets his eyes. The blank expression drops a little before pulling up into a smile.

“Hello Tim!” it says, voice looping oddly from monotonous up to cheery within three syllables. “I see that you have your eyes in now. Can’t say I’m happy about it, but I’m glad to see you’re up and about again!”

“What?” he says, a grimace pulling on his face. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

It looks back down at the notebook and glances over the notes. “Nothing,” it says, monotonous as it focuses. “It’s just that you can see that I’m not real now. It’s better when people think I’m real.”

“How are you not real?” he walks toward the table and takes a seat across from the Toy Soldier. “You look real to me.”

It glances up at him, still smiling. “I’m a Toy Soldier,” it says. “I’m not a real person.”

“That makes absolutely no sense,” Tim narrows his eyes. “You’re not some kind of robot.”

“I mean, yes, technically I am,” it shrugs. “I was programmed to take orders and to be a soldier.”

“Okay, well,” he scrunches up his nose. “AI is a thing. I think. What makes you less of a human than the rest of the crew?”

“I am made of wood!” 

“Brian is made of metal.”

“I don’t have a human brain with human emotions.”

“Ivy has a mechanized brain and I know for a fact you have emotions,” he grimaces hard as this. “You wanted to kill me because I ordered you. That’s an emotion. If you didn’t have emotions you would’ve just followed the order.”

It looks up at him fully this time, blinking blankly. “I’m not alive,” it says simply.

“That’s completely arbitrary,” he grumbles. “According to the laws of life a fire can be considered alive.”

It doesn’t respond to this. Eventually, it does look away, drinking some of the tea that sits in front of it. It looks down at the page in front of it and scribbles something down. Tim sits in silence, watching it mutely as it does its own thing.

“The Angel didn’t know I wasn’t real,” it says eventually. 

“If the only thing that proves you’re not alive is that I can see that you look wooden, then that’s not proof at all,” he says firmly. “Look, do you want me to call you something other than ‘it?’ Jonny said that’s what you go by but if you’re so hung up on this not real th-”

“No, I like ‘it,’” the Toy Soldier says. “People used to call me ‘he’ and I didn’t like it much. ‘It’ is much better.”

“Oh,” Tim says, somewhat surprised. “Alright then.”

The Toy Soldier gets up to pour him a cup of tea at some point and Tim sits quietly, content to watch it hum and strum out a song. It reminds him of the war in a way, just being content to do nothing and watch people go about their day and routine. Just a chance to do nothing. No fighting, no arguing, no running, no shooting.

He can be content here.

**Author's Note:**

> Yeah, so is anyone going to talk about how the Toy Soldier killed the woman it loved out of jealousy and rage? I feel like we should talk about that more. I feel like we should talk about the Toy Soldier, in general, a lot more. You probably already knew that though.  
> Find me @fracnkie for a fucking mess of a main blog or @byron-von-raum for mechs related things. If you didn't know, my friend Ashi and I wrote a song and posted it! Find it @byron-von-raum under "The Spectacles" tag!


End file.
